Lehighton High School challenges Northwestern during District 11 Boys 2A semifinal at Northern Lehigh, on Tuesday, October 28, 2014. (HARRY FISHER / THE MORNING CALL)

"Their goalkeeper was very skilled, so any shot that was going to beat him had to be well placed," Moyer said. "I would say Reichard's shot — it wasn't like a rip or anything — it was one of those awkward shots where I'm sure that keeper came behind a crowd and couldn't see it until the last minute, which was a bonus to us."

Despite Reichard being the only player to find the back of the net, it was Saucon Valley's Joe Schuyler who stood out as one of the best offensive players on the field.

Schuyler spent much of the first half weaving in and out of the Blue Mountain defense, taking a number of shots and setting up a few scoring chances, but each shot that was on goal found Albertini.

"Joe was great and obviously that's where I'm commending [Blue Mountain's] keeper for being very athletic," Moyer said. "Against most keepers Joe's putting those [chances] in and Joe has two or three goals from that. Their keeper did a great job controlling that. … We tried to make some adjustments with Joe to make that a little more productive for us and some stuff looked like it was going to fall, it just didn't."

Even though Saucon Valley came up empty in a first half in which it allowed Blue Mountain to take just one shot, both Moyer and Reichard said there was no frustration from the Panthers.

Reichard said Saucon Valley's coach emphasized the need to continue playing their game and that's exactly what they did in the second half.

Continued sharp passing by Saucon Valley spawned even more chances including two involving Reichard before he netted the game-winner.

With the win, the Panthers advance to the Class 2A finals and will face Northwestern Lehigh, a 5-0 winner over Lehighton, on Thursday.

Unlike the boys, the Saucon Valley girls were only able to control play in the first half of their game.

The Panthers prevented Central Catholic from getting any offense going for the first 10 minutes, allowed just two shots in the first half and created a plethora of chances on the offensive side of the ball.

A direct free kick from Lauren Binn at 32:47 was the first opportunity the Panthers had, although Binn's shot sailed just over the crossbar. She narrowly missed on a similar opportunity in the second half as well.

The next chance Saucon Valley had, it converted. Central Catholic turned the ball over in front of its own net and the Panthers' Maddie Heenan picked up the ball. Heenan fed a pass to Paige Jones, who scored the game's lone goal with 27:24 remaining in the first half.

Another turnover by Central about a minute later led to a breakaway for Jones but this time she was unable to put one on the scoreboard, pushing her shot wide.

Luckily for the Panthers, all the missed opportunities didn't come back to haunt them.

"I was joking if we would have moved the goal over about five feet to the left, I think the score wouldn't have been 1-0," said Saucon Valley girls coach Stevie Ochse. "We had a lot of opportunities in the very beginning — we definitely had them on their heels — unfortunately when you don't capitalize on those chances, we allowed them to stay in the game and obviously it became a dogfight at the end."

The last 10 minutes of the game was almost all offensive pressure from Central but Saucon Valley's goalie, Helen Ross, was there to meet each challenge. She came out of her net twice to corral loose balls, made a save on a point blank shot and then received help from the goal post with 4:37 remaining to preserve the shutout.

While the Panthers survived a second half onslaught from Central Catholic, they know they'll have to be more consistent throughout heading into their Class 2A final if they want a similar end result against Northwestern on Thursday.

"There's times where we are so on and then there's times where we make sloppy passes," Jones said. "I think we can clean that up a little bit because that's what drives the turnovers and that's what happened in the second half."